VOLYNTSY
[End Page 1747] Pre-1941: Volyntsy, village, Drissa raion, Vitebsk oblast’, Belorussian SSR; 1941–1944: Wolynzy, Rayon Drissa, Rear Area, Army Group Center (rückwärtiges Heeresgebiet Mitte); post-1991: Valyntsy, Verkhniadzvinsk raen, Vitsebsk voblasts’, Republic of Belarus
Volyntsy is located about 40 kilometers (25 miles) northwest of Polotsk. On July 10, 1941, the German 14th Panzer Division of the newly formed 4th Panzer Army captured the villages of Volyntsy and Borkovichi. From August 1941 onward, the Drissa raion, including the village of Volyntsy, was under the authority of Rear Area, Army Group Center.
In January 1942, the remaining 84 Jews in Volyntsy were assembled “behind a fence” (that is, in a ghetto surrounded with barbed wire). About one month later, a punitive squad of about 20 men arrived in Volyntsy from Drissa in two cars; they drove the Jews from the ghetto, forming them into a column, 4 abreast, and escorted them to a nearby forest, where a pit 8 meters by 2 meters (26 by 7 feet) had been dug beforehand, and shot them. Members of the local population could observe the massacre with their own eyes, as the killers conducted the Aktion close to the town’s marketplace. After the massacre, the Germans sold part of the Jews’ belongings to the locals and took away the most valuable objects.1
SOURCES
According to Marat Botvinnik, Pamiatniki genotsida evreev Belarusi (Minsk: Belaruskaia Navuka, 2000), pp. 170, 189, the Aktion in Volyntsy took place on February 2, 1942. The mass shooting of the Jews of Volyntsy is also mentioned in Pamiats’: Belarus’ (Minsk: Respublikanskaia Kniha, 1995), p. 132.
The documents of the ChGK for the Drissa raion can be found in GARF (7021-92-215); USHMM; and YVA.
NOTES
1. GARF, 7021-92-215.
